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Kligat writes "The International Astronomical Union has renamed the dwarf planet Haumea and its two moons Hi'iaka and Namaka, after the Hawaiian fertility goddess, the patron goddess of Hawaii, and a water spirit. The cigar-shaped body is speculated to have resulted from its short rotational period of only four hours. Holding up the reclassification of the body as a dwarf planet was a dispute over its discovery between the groups of José Luis Ortiz Moreno and Michael E. Brown."

Wait, it's "cigar-shaped" and they're naming it after a fertility _Goddess_? Something's not right here.

This is what bothers you most? By the IAU's definition a dwarf planet is not a planet, and a planet that doesn't orbit our own star is not a planet. I've got a masters in Astronomy (never used it professionally and never intended to, did the degree for my own learning). I have no time for the IAU's nonsense. It's a good example of how politics in science leads to nonsense in science.

Ok, great victory for believers in Hawaiian mythology. I'm waiting for the day when they finally run out of religious mythologies and have to allow names like Xena for real. Although there are so many religions around that by that time Xena will probably be seen as an ancient mythological figure.

Don't you think a name like Jesus at least deserves a moon? An asteroid would be Baby Jesus.

Perhaps that's where people go when they rapture. Like that episode of Voyager where the inhabitants of a planet thought they went to a higher plane when they died, but turned they actually wound up as mummies on a rock in space somewhere.

Not really. Moreno had also been looking at the object for a while, they only looked at Brown's observing logs the day before their announcement, to check whether they were actually looking at the same object as Brown. Brown didn't follow the standard procedure for claiming discovery of a minor planet (but had published an abstract signifying their intention to announce the discovery), which left the door open for Moreno to get in first. If Brown had followed procedure, there would have been no problem.

It was very impolite of Moreno though. The polite action would have been for Moreno to (1) contact Brown directly, rather than googling through his observing logs, and (2) come to a friendly agreement on who gets to claim the discovery. The astronomy community is (or was, until this event) very good natured. That good nature was probably the biggest casualty in all of this. But Moreno's reputation took a hammering too, at least in the popular press.

Well, Brown is apparently still favoring the theory that Ortiz Moreno never did his own observations and 'stole' all the data from Brown's observing logs. But Brown himself admits there is no firm evidence for this. The IAU's decision to accept joint discovery was probably inevitable; either that or directly accuse Ortiz Moreno of scientific misconduct.

If you have evidence, then put up. Otherwise, stop accusing people of fraud and shut up. Either way, what Ortiz Moreno did was impolite and dishonest,

Oops, there was supposed to be a link to Brown's blog in my comment, as a citation for the statement that "Brown himself admits there is no firm evidence for this.". This comes from http://www.mikebrownsplanets.com/ [mikebrownsplanets.com]

FWIW, my Dad is an astronomer. I'm just a condensed matter physicist. I don't have any inside information though, nor does the old man. For you to make such accusations, I would hope that you do have such information. But since you have never deigned t

That's Moreno's claim, that it was simply co-incidental that he went back though two year old data right after Brown released the abstract. However, Brown pretty much nails it: Moreno used the abstract and the logs for research but did not cite them. That's a big fucking no-no in science, and the only real reason to do that is to try to conceal the fact you were pirating someone else's research.

Well, Moreno's claim is that they never really used the information in the logs, but only looked at it to confirm that they were studying the same object. It is bloody suspicious though, the standard procedure in that case would be to just email Brown and ask him. And I agree, not citing Brown is poor form, irrespective of any other circumstances. But what would Moreno have cited? You cannot cite an abstract that contains no information, nor can you cite an observing log on the internet. You can only

I see nothing dirty here. If you keep your observation logs public, you can't cry foul when someone accesses them or even uses the information in them (something he hasn't shown, and is only implying).

And in any case, there's not any lack of documentation that Moreno had been investigating the object. It's not like he didn't know about it until the day before he reported it and "stole" the whole thing from Michael Brown.

In short, Brown gambled on no one else reporting it while he collected more data so he

I think the suspicion was in the timing. The timing of events went something like: both had been observing the same object. Brown released an abstract saying he'd be announcing something. Moreno googled his logs to see what he'd been observing. Moreno then announces it the next day. I think there was speculation that upon realizing Brown would be announcing the discovery of the same object he was observing, Moreno announced it himself the next day since the first to announce it gets credit for discover

A little bit more to it than that. Moreno accessed the data, then asked his colleagues to point the telescope right where the object should be, then sent out an announcement with the new observation plus a bunch of archival data. The Caltech crew got suspicious when they noticed the Googling. They got even more suspicious when they noticed it was from the same IP as the announcement email. They got even more suspicious when Moreno wouldn't respond to their request for an explanation.

That isn't quite right, the first announcement from Moreno's group occurred before they did the new observations. You really should read the timeline [caltech.edu] to get it straight before making posts, otherwise you are just wasting people's time. Moreno's group sent the announcement to the IAU the day after the first access of Brown's observing logs. It was only after this announcement that Moreno accessed Brown's logs again and requested the additional observations. After that, Moreno sent a follow-up email to t

"The decision was made after discussions by members of the International Astronomical Union's Committee on Small Body Nomenclature (CSBN) and the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN)"

Surprisingly interesting names, but should bodies that name themselves CSBN and WGPSN really be in charge of naming other bodies?

I beg to differ! My wife gave birth to our first kid! And...wait a minute? I just realized that I was too busy with WoW to consumate...but......Darnit! It's a good thing she isn't home right now, or I would tell her what I think. Why is she always gone most of the day? And the night?

It's Thursday, so she should be swinging by for her check soon. While I'm waiting for her, I could try for another level or two. But first, let me refill my snacks!

Unless you have a serious speaking disorder, Haumea is not pronounced like "homo" in Dutch.

The "au" in Haumea is pronounced like the "ow" in "how", and the "ea" are pronouced seperately.

The "o"'s in "homo" are just "o"'s like in "homo sapiens".

It actually sounds exactly like it would sound in Hawaiian. Dutch and Hawaiian phonology are rather similar (unlike Dutch and English). Pronouncing it like "homo" would just mean you're doing it wrong in both languages.

It doesn't seem accurate to me to call it "cigar-shaped". If the shape is due to its rotation (which is implied by the Brown et al paper linked from the article), then it would have an oblate spheroid shape like the Earth. I.e., more of a hamburger shape than cigar. It seems a shame to ruin all these Freudian jokes, but facts are facts.